Ohio Gadfly Daily

The State Board of Education recently adopted significant changes to the rules around Ohio's dropout prevention and recovery school report cards. Among other changes, graduation rate expectations have increased and it will now be more difficult for schools to earn dropout prevention and recovery school designations. Fordham’s Jessica Poiner breaks down some of the changes here.

Toledo charter school students attend behavioral health summer camp

This year, Caregiver Grove (a behavioral health service provider) started providing in-school counseling at several charter schools in Toledo, including Achieve, STAR Academy of Toledo, and REACH Academy. But their work didn’t stop when summer vacation began. Instead, they launched a summer version of the program and 20 students, ages 8 to 17, are currently enrolled. The program is set up like a summer camp (with sports, field trips, and art) that’s designed to help the students with anger management, depression and anxiety, social skills, and expressing emotions.

Innovation Ohio’s half truths about ECOT and school funding

Over the past month, several newspapers have published articles on ECOT and based their coverage on an...

Since 2012, Tennessee has taken a unique approach to intervening in struggling schools. With the goal of turning around the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in the state (known as priority schools), officials introduced two separate models: the Achievement School District (ASD) and Innovation Zones (iZones). The ASD is a state-run district that directly manages some priority schools and turns others over to select charter management organizations. iZones, on the other hand, are subsets of priority schools that remain under district control but are granted greater autonomy and financial support to implement interventions. There are four districts that contain iZones: Shelby County Schools (Memphis), Metro-Nashville Public Schools, Hamilton County Schools (Chattanooga), and Knox County Schools (Knoxville). The remaining priority schools weren’t included in either of these initiatives, effectively creating a comparison group.

Research teams from Vanderbilt University and the University of Kentucky have kept a close eye on both initiatives. In 2015, they published an evaluation of the ASD and iZone schools after three years of implementation. They found that, while ASD schools did not improve any more or less than other priority schools, iZone schools produced moderate to large positive effects on student test scores. A separate ...

Remember what we were saying last week about the downbeat assessment of the passage of a bill that would, among other things, change many facets of e-school accountability? Well, “downbeat” appears to have given way to outright pessimism over the weekend, with editors in Columbus… (Columbus Dispatch, 6/30/18) …and editors in Akron opining strongly on the topic. (Akron Beacon Journal, 7/1/18)

Speaking of teachers, contract negotiations are underway in Youngstown, for the first time since the district began operating under the aegis of a CEO-style Academic Distress Commission. Almost everyone interviewed in this piece expresses optimism for the process, including some folks whose opinion on the matter should probably not be included. Here’s hoping for a good process and outcome despite that. (Youngstown Vindicator, 7/1/18)

Here’s a nice look at what could be described as a behavioral health summer camp in Toledo – designed to help students with things like anger management and respecting boundaries. The most interesting part: the entire program consists only of charter school students. How’d that

First off, ECOT’s shameless political self-dealings were outrageous and have harmed the reputation of responsible charter public schools in Ohio. Its academic results were astonishingly bad, with abysmal value-added scores—estimates of its impact on student growth over time—being the clearest signs of educational dysfunction. (No, its low graduation rates are not compelling evidence as some claim; the school likely enrolled significant numbers of credit-deficient students, artificially “deflating” their graduation rate.)

All in all, count me sympathetic to those who are outraged and indignant at the school. But ECOT’s wrongs don’t make it right to distort...

This week, the House and Senate each passed wide ranging education bills—SB 216 and HB 87, respectively. The bills, on their way to Governor Kasich for approval, revamp Ohio’s teacher evaluation system, tweak teacher licensure provisions, allow districts to administer paper and pencil assessments to third graders, and make a variety of changes related to online charter schools. The online charter measures drew the most public attention with stories in all major newspapers.

Supreme Court Janus decision

The Supreme Court ruled on the Janus case this week, holding that requiring employees to pay negotiating fees to unions violates the first amendment. The 74 describes the particulars and captures early public reaction.

Let’s get back to that downbeat assessment of the bill passed to address Ohio’s “online charter school problem” (you know the problem I mean), mentioned in Item 1 above. We have previously discussed the widespread demonization of ECOT, which went so far as to turn literal when its moldering corpse was compared to Dracula

A-to-F school rating systems have come under fire in Ohio and remain a hotly debated topic elsewhere. Proponents usually argue that they provide clear information that parents and communities can easily digest, while also motivating schools to improve. Critics often claim that such blunt ratings could damage schools’ reputations or demoralize educators should they receive poor grades. But what does the research have to say?

A recent study by Rebecca Dizon-Ross examines the impacts of A–F school accountability in New York City (NYC) on teacher turnover and quality, as estimated by value added measures. Under the leadership of former mayor Michael Bloomberg and school chancellor Joel Klein, NYC began in fall 2007 to assign A–F school grades and link low ratings to consequences. Prior research has already shown that these accountability reforms led to higher student achievement, with gains concentrated among children attending low-rated schools. Dizon-Ross studies teacher workforce patterns in 2008–09 and 2009–10 and uses a regression discontinuity design that focuses on schools near letter grade cutoffs to gauge the effects of receiving lower accountability ratings.

State report cards are a hot topic in Ohio, but most of the attention has been focused on the system used for traditional district and charter schools. Many Ohioans are unaware that state law requires the State Board of Education to have a separate report card system for dropout prevention and recovery charter schools (DPRS). During the 2016–17 school year, there were eighty-nine dropout-recovery schools operating in Ohio: seventy-six brick and mortar schools serving just over 10,000 students, and thirteen online schools serving nearly 4,000 students. Together, these schools account for 12.5 percent of Ohio’s charter school enrollment.

DPRS report cards contain four indicators:

Graduation Rate: This includes the conventional four- and five-year rates, but also rates extending to eight years. The use of extended rates—e.g., looking at whether students earn a diploma eight years after entering ninth grade—is based on the premise that DRPS schools typically enroll credit-deficient students who may need more time to meet graduation requirements.

High School Tests: This calculates the percentage of twelfth graders who have earned the designated passing score on the applicable state achievement assessments.

Annual Measurable Objectives: Also known as the Gap Closing component, this indicator compares